3. Poetical forms
3. Poetical forms
Myers thinks that, while the book of Ruth as it stands is undoubtedly prose, there underlies it a poetic original. He draws attention to many occurrences of parallelism, to the occurrence of poetic words and phrases, to the way various scenes in the book lend themselves to poetic treatment, and to many passages which scholars have regarded as poetry. It is possible that parts, at any rate, of the book were at one time poetry. If so, the core of the book in origin is older than the date at which it was reduced to writing in its present form. But there is a good deal that is speculative here, and perhaps we should not rest too much on it.